


Melancholia

by JEAikman



Series: The Musketeers - prompts and one-shots [41]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Melancholy, Mentions of Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1990617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JEAikman/pseuds/JEAikman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wears her new name like a cape and a suit of armour. It hides her and it makes her strong. Milady has no need of emotion.</p>
<p>But underneath it all Anne sometimes hurts, still, and it feels like a hole in her heart riddled with scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melancholia

Her descents into melancholia were infrequent, but she felt them as keenly as she had ever felt the rope around her pale and delicate throat. She tried to ignore it most of the time - she was strong, with a heart of ice and Hell's fire in her eyes. She melted down the Comtesse de la Fere and re-forged herself as Milady de Winter. She used the name as her armour and her weapon, hard and sharp and inspiring fear in the hearts of men. She was strong, numbed to Hell's horrors and devoid of emotion. She was fierce, and she was free.

 

Except when she wasn't. The times when she laid down her head and closed her eyes and remembered a beautiful home, where there was nothing between her and her husband but love. They could have had a child by now. A girl, with her curls and Olivier's eyes. Heaven help them if she inherited her father's shaggy locks.

Damn Thomas and his meddling. Damn that boy, and damn his love for his brother. Damn Olivier's love for him. Damn them, damn them both, she wanted to scream. All she had wanted was a new start. She wanted to _leave_ her past behind. She wanted Thomas to understand that, she had tried to explain, but he threatened to tell Olivier - and he would never look at her again if he knew.

Not that it had mattered, in the end. Olivier knew that she killed Thomas, and the look on his face had been so much worse than anything she had imagined in her nightmares. And then he couldn't even _watch_. He wouldn't do her the dignity of holding her gaze as she died. The wretch - the coward! How dare he? After all that she had sacrificed to keep their love alive?

There were no more perfect days for Anne de Breuille. There were only perfect murders for Milady de Winter.

 

Milady de Winter might be a monster, but she was one of Olivier de la Fere's own making. And there might be days when her heart ached with the lack of him, but he would never earn his wife's forgiveness. The Comtesse de la Fere died choking on her husband's love in a field of forget-me-nots, a long time ago.


End file.
